Dropped and Running
by Vulcan2312
Summary: Charged by gods I do not know, My friends and I take on the challenges of Remnant, and end the endless cycle of immortals.


"_Come, we must act quickly!" A voice speaks over my dream, "His God must not see us."_

"_Of course, is this the one?" A younger voice speaks back to the other, "yes that's the one."_

"_Yes," the first says, "hmm… it seems he can hear us, Interesting, He didn't before."_

"_Will it be a problem?" _

"_No, he would only see this as a dream." A Bright white light starts to fill up the void in the dream, "if you, human, remember this, we are charging you to fix our world." The Bright glow dims a little, losing a bit of luster to a dull yellow. _

_An empty void that strikes out against the rest shifts to a glowing purple light next to the yellow, "Yes, youngling, we need to put things into motion which have already happened, and those that haven't yet."_

"_Go, find more, he isn't the only one." The purple light fades, and the yellow light starts to shift to white again._

* * *

Waking up to birds chirping is usually a pleasant sensation, something most people strive for. Except when you're part of the night crew. Then it's just a tad annoying, especially that one crow that hangs on the gutter just above the window, cawing like Lucifer himself is after it.

Groggily, I pull my comforter off, and checking my phone, I see that my phone is dead. "Fuck." Checking the cord to see if my cat had unplugged it while I was sleeping again, but I see that he hadn't.

Crawling my way off the loft bed, I check the surge protector in case it tripped last night, I see yet again, it hasn't. "Huh, I'm sure I paid the electric bill." The red hued light that shines through the window alerts me to something off outside.

Looking outside, I see that my house is in an oak forest in fall, which last I checked, it was spring. Walking to the living room, I don't see Mojo or Blue in the dining room. In fact, it looks like they were never there at all, no smell of dog lingering in the air, or stray hair clumping in the corners. Looking up above the bookshelf, the crack in the ceiling was gone, no longer sagging onto the stack of books that was put up there to hold it up.

Walking back into my room, I notice my boots show no wear or damage they once had, my drawers of clothes perfectly clean and folded. Despite the fact I tend to just leave my clothes in a clean hamper to dig through. The leather couch under my bed is looking fresher than when my mom got it.

Everything looks perfect, but it felt very off, like something is wrong. I headed to the kitchen, and saw that it was void of any food. The back door is pristine, as though no dogs had chewed the frame away, or the window pane I punched through as a kid when my mother locked me outside in the backyard.

The entire house looks brand new, as though all the scars of life have simply vanished. Looking out front, I see my truck has been refurbished as well, the protective coating and paint being whole, no longer peeling from the elements. Yet, the ground around my house has been scorched, as though to keep with the voiding of life. To show that, this was not natural growth, but a forced action.

I head back to my room, and start putting on some better clothes than ripped sweatpants. Pulling on a pair of jeans, a black shirt with a red plaid button down, my black work boots, and a blue cadet cap. I grab my mechanics gloves that I cut the fingers off of, and a gator that I had for a year.

Looking over to my left at the window, I see a crow hanging on the edge of the sill. It stares intently, with a bit more knowledge than the average crow. Closing the curtains I start to grab my knives, one switchblade to my right pocket, and a set of throwing knives to the left side of my belt.

Stuffing my zippo lighter into my left breast pocket, I stop to think. What do I plan to do?

Here I am, stuck in the middle of nowhere, no food, no water, I got a truck with limited gas and electricity, and small knives.

Pacing around in the living room, thinking on what to do. I don't know anywhere to go, and I can't stay here without food. Hearing a train horn in the distance, I decide to hell with it; I start to pack my clean clothing into the black suitcase I have at the base of my bed.

Shuffling through the drawers, I open the bottom one, and found not clothes, but the books and papers I had put in there long ago. And sitting on top of the stack, was the Bible my family gave me at my highschool graduation. I reverently place it inside the laptop bag I have.

After packing everything that's moderately essential that I have, I walk to the front door, pausing as I step next to the steel bar I had picked up from work. Grabbing the rod, I walk outside and load up the truck.

* * *

"Where's Vulcan?" Steve asks, "He should've been on by now, he agreed to watch redline at 6pm today, and he's not on." Steve mutters, sighing in frustration.

"Yeah." I reply off-handedly, focusing on the current level of Enter the Gungeon. Just as I was about to fire a blank, I got hit by three shotguns. "Ahh… he could've stayed up late last night. He could be passed out still."

"No, I was on last night working at the Corridors of Time. He wasn't online."

"Hnng." I grunt, switching to a different game for a while. "Hold on, brb, gonna get a drink." I say quickly, but knowing Steve, he wasn't paying attention.

I quickly rush down the stairs of my family's house, getting caught in a conversation with my brother, grabbing a bottle of soda, I rush back up stairs, and as I walk into my room, I see that Steve has left the party, probably got dragged away by his family. Shrugging, I see that I still got time to work on starbound for a while.

"Ray, get ready to go see grandma." My mother says from the doorframe to my room.

"Urt… Ok." Really ma, we should be quarantined, grandma should be fine, us seeing her could kill her, but ok… mental complaint aside, I pull on a fresh pair of grey jeans, a black shirt, a grey duster, and I slip on my pair of black boots.

Looking at my clothes, and my closet, I see nothing but dark clothes, nothing but black and grey, no need for white, my skin is pale enough.

I slip on my black gater and a black operator hat, you know, a ball cap with Velcro on the face. You know, I could be asking for a stroke, considering I'm in Florida.

Strapping my bayonet knife to the inside of my jacket, I start walking out of my room. As I cross the threshold of the door frame, I step on snow. My vision warps, and I find myself in a snowy field.

In the center of the field lies a smoking fort, recently destroyed from the look of it. Approaching the broken wall, I place my hand on a claw mark, one of many littering the casted metal. 'Why am I here?' I think to myself, 'I mean, it's not like I passed out as soon as I walked out of my room.' As I'm thinking to myself, I idly ran my hand against one of the scratches, cutting my hand.

The small prick of pain was enough to alert me that this is not a dream. "So, why am I here?" I ask out loud, not expecting an answer. I walk through the gap and stare at all the bodies. Hundreds of mangled corpses scattered around like frat boys after a 5 hour party.

Walking to the closest one, I took off his helmet, taking a look at the dead man under the armor. A young man, eyes that probably shined like a blazing fire, had they not glazed over with fear maring the glare. His black hair matted down from sweat and blood clung to his forehead and face, and his mouth held agape with a silent scream.

"Rest in peace..." I mutter as I close his eyes. Taking a look at the helmet, I see that it is rather basic, full face cover, polarized visor, a lot of padding, hell, the only electric parts in the helmet they managed to get in are the micro-fans, to defog more than cool the head, and the radio system. Placing the helmet back in the hand of the dead man, I move on passing more and more corpses.

* * *

"God Damnit!" I hiss to myself, my back has been very spasmic these past three days. Needles hasn't gotten back on for the past two days, and neither he nor Vulcan has replied in discord, the bastards.

Choosing to take a quick warm shower again, for like the 5th time today. Quickly relishing in the soothing touch of warm water, the spasms fading, I hear my Father banging on the door, yelling "Steve damnit! Get out of that shower, Your limit was two!"

Sighing, "Ok!" I quickly hop out, and got dress. Deciding that I have nothing better to do, I tell my father that I'm gonna go out to the forest and shoot some arrows.

"Alright be back before sundown."

Heading to my room to change into better outside clothes, I change into a grey T-shirt, grey pants, black vans, a silver diver watch, a mask and ghost bead bracelet, and a black jacket. I grab my compound bow, and my knife, which I attach its sheath to the inside of my jacket. I grab the quiver, attaching it to my hip, and count ten arrows. Wiping my glasses on my shirt, I head out to the front door.

I step outside, and I'm blinded a bit by the bright light, and as my glasses adjust, I notice that there's a shit ton of snow on the ground, and no neighborhood. I also realise that the spasms in my back have stopped, but also, a new, yet familiar, weight was on my back. I check my back, and I notice two massive brown and white wings.

I reach out to touch one with my hand, and I feel it. I feel my hand through the wing, and the feathers are fucking soft. In response to the touch, the wings start to seize slightly. I try to control it, but it seems that the cerebellum is working them on its own. Putting my hands on the wings again, I try to gently stroke them to relax the muscles. A surge of feeling runs up and down my spine, seems like the wings are very sensitive to touch. Taking a look at the pattern, Brown top which fades into white with brown specks, I remember that most birds with this color pattern are generally birds of prey. Usually from snowy areas, how convenient.

After relaxing the wings, I tried moving them and it's a bit sluggish, but I can somewhat control them. I move them back to a resting position against my back. I look around, at this snowy grove, tall conifers reach up to the heavens. Looking down at the snow, I notice strange paw prints, too big to be a dog, not the right shape for a bear, it's like a cross between a human's foot, and a dog, but that's only for two out of four, as the other pair for this beast is massive, like a human hand but with claws. Noticing also the gouging into the dirt, this beast was sprinting, and these hand-like tracks had really long claws. Something like this is unnatural, as usual claws in wolves would be ground down from scraping on rocks, and prey. Whatever this beast is, it's not a typical hunter.

Looking forward to where the tracks lead, brushes and branches were disturbed, also the spread is wide and scattered, not single file like wolves, inexperienced hunters, probably an inexperienced pack. Readying my bow, I follow the trail, hoping to learn more of this beast. If there's anything I learned from my background is that when predators are sprinting, it means either food, or a greater danger, either way following the tracks is your safest bet. Following the trampled path, I eventually came across a massive clearing, which in the center sat a military structure.

It was damaged, but even from this distance, I can see the claw marks that were raking the metal walls. No beasts were anywhere, but there was also a lack of noise coming from the structure. I was about to break from the treeline, when I saw a black figure step out of the fort. I still myself, not moving, hidden by the brushes before me. Then I heard a loud whooshing noise, and a fucking flying submarine breaches over the treeline. Several people leap off the open doors on the side, surrounding the figure.

* * *

Stepping out of the lifeless fort, I stopped back where I had appeared in this place. I look around, and for a moment, I thought I saw someone in the tree line. But then a grey submarine with wings fucking dove over the treeline, and several people in white naval coats, wielding various weapons drop from the ship, without a fucking rope. A female with white hair in a weird hybrid between a bun and a pixie cut walks forward, hand resting on the pommel of her sword, which was hidden from the angle I'm at.

"What are you doing here? This is an Atlesian property." the white haired woman asked.

"Not much of a property," I reply, shrugging while gesturing at the claw mark, "It seems like animals took over."

"It would seem that way yes, but that still does not answer my question." She tightens her grip on the sword.

Making a show of looking to my left and right, I hold my hands out to the sides and scoff."Oh? You planning on drawing your weapon at an unarmed stranger? That could get you in a shit load of trouble ma'am." wagging my finger back n' forth.

"Answer the damn Question!" She yells, drawing a bastard of cutlass with a rapier hilt.

"The hell is that thing? If you're going to have a cutlass make the guard a cutlass cup, not that flimsy ass rapier guard, also what is that blade, you take a fucking knife to comprimise the structure intentionaly, why would you butcher it like that?"

Eyes narrowing in anger, several glowing circles appear in a line between me and her, then she shoots herself forwards with the force of a railgun, "Holy shit!". Diving to the side, I realize something interesting, the world was moving significantly slower. Quickly drawing my knife, I bring it up in time to parry the next charge.

Slight surprise flashed on her face, before it hardened again. Attempting to spin to attack me from my left, I quickly step forwards into her guard and ready my knife for a parry and prepare a counter. As the blade makes contact with her sword I press my weight into the strike, pushing the blade away. Seeing my opportunity I retaliate with a quick jab to the kidney from my left hand. When my hand hit, it made contact with some kind of shield, not flesh. Then a flash of sky blue coated the area where I punched.

Raising an Eyebrow, I understand that she has some kind of protection, meaning I should be more aggressive. Am I? Nah. Parrying another swipe, I slash once with the blade, raking it against the energy. "Huh. That's cheating you bastard."

She took another strike, finding it to be parried, "What do you mean, interloper?" She picks up the pace, swiping several times in rapid succession, right, parry, left, parry, top, parry, upward slash, not perfectly parried, lightly raked against the chest.

"Ouch, that one hurt a bit." I say, dashing back a bit. I see little drops of blood in the snow. She sees it too.

"You don't have aura…" She mutters, her eyes glancing back at me, a new emotion flitter across her face, before hardening once more. "Surrender! Now! You cannot win." Raising her sword to point at me.

At this point, I feel the cold wall of the fort pressing into my back, and looking past the woman, I see five people aiming those blocky guns at me, I also notice several people rushing into the forest. "Heh, Guess I have to now, I wouldn't like to be executed by a firing squad."

* * *

Fuck, Turning back into the forest, running from some damn machines that were dropped from the flying sub. I rush through the brush, reading an arrow onto my bow, resting it on the nock. Several trees, and rolling to dodge some potshots, I ended up in a grove, the same one that I started in, except, some black creatures are here smelling of sulfur and ozone.

Rolling to the right, the robots breach the tree line, where they seem to prioritize firing at the black creatures more than me. Stepping back into the trees, I move back behind the machine, using the disturbed snow to hide my tracks, before sharply turning to the right as I hear some soldiers ahead. Diving into some thick shrubbery, and crouching into the foliage, I hold still, calming my breathing, to keep it as silent as it can, hoping the marching of the soldiers will cover it.

It fucking didn't.

"Halt" A mechanized voice orders. On gut feeling alone, I loose the arrow into its neck, as it started lifting its arm cannon, piercing the wires in its neck, causing it to immediately shut down upon the robot shutting down the other robots raise their arm guns each getting an arrow each for their efforts Then the whooshing of the sub approaches, flying overhead, and dropping several people.

"Surrender, and we won't shoot!" A voice blares from the aircraft.

"Calm down, your robots fired on me, or attempted to at least." I yell back, backing away as much as possible, my wings slightly lifting from my back in agitation. The pilot seems to have taken this as a threat after seeing my wings raise, spinning to expose several robots aiming their guns at me.

Shit.

Leaping to the side, instinctively my wings flapping to push myself further, I weave through the trees, dodging more and more rounds. I hear the soldiers on the ground shouting to stand down and halt.

Looking at the trees around me, I take cover behind one and loose an arrow into one of the robots heads, taking it offline instantly. Seven more arrows go down range disabling guards and destroying robots that are in pursuit. A shot rang out from the bullhead, and with a whoosh, a bullet wiz through my feathers sparking on the ground in front of me. The sparks linger enough that when I stumbled forward, it zapps me. The electricity arcs over to my leg causing it to seize up, no option to run and not enough balance to fight anymore I drop my bow and raise my hands.

* * *

"Who designed this?" I say while inspecting the strange rope cuffs that they are using to restrain me. "I could make four nooses, one for each of us." As soon as I finish that thought I hear slight shuffling and a loud bang outside the airship, soon after the door slides open and a winged man is thrown inside and the door slams shut.

"There was no need for that!" the man seems to yell at the guards outside after that he takes a seat on the bench across from me.

I observed the man in front of me with curiosity. 'What the hell?' I wondered. Somehow I manage to get myself arrested and now there is a winged man in front of me, I must be losing my mind.

"Well then, what are you here for?" I say, getting him to look up at me, wait a minute, He looks slightly familiar.

He seems to look at me and squint his eyes, but says nothing. He looks back down at his cuffs, seeing how far he can move his wrists.

"Tried that my friend, it doesn't quite move like that."

He looked at me and said in a tone dripping with sarcasm "No shit."

"No need to get hostile, just trying to see who else is trapped in this bucket."

"Steve Ma'ii." he says in an unimpressed voice

"Ray Needle." I said nodding my head.

He squints at me again and asks a question "Do you go by Doctor perhaps?"

"Not professionally," I respond, furrowing my eyebrows. "Who are you again?"

His eyes seem to widen in response and he seems to exclaim, "You piece of shit, it's you!"

"What, you're kidding. How in god's sacred name did we manage to be wrapped up in the same bullshit?"

"We always get wrapped up in this kind of shit! What do you mean?"

"Yeah, but this is for re-"

"Shut up back there!" A guard yells, banging on the grate with a baton, getting several sparks to shoot off the metal.

Shrugging, I slump back over in my seat listening to the metal walls rumbling with the ship taking off.

* * *

"Fucking stupid peice of shit! Turn over already!" I yell, frustrated at my truck, turning the ignition over and over, when finally, it turns over. "Fucking finally!"

BA-DOOM!

The hood of my truck explodes up and forward, Thankfully not into the house, but it did clip the concrete stairs off the back door. "Fuck." I mutter, slamming my head onto the wheel with a thunk. Shifting the gear into Neutral, I grab my shit out of my truck, and roll it away from the house, You know, in case the fire spreads. Not like there's anything to burn, other than my house here.

Turning around, I pick up my bags, I start walking. Wedging the rod over my shoulder through the straps of the laptop bag, I walk straight towards where I think I heard the train.

Fwoom!

'And the fuel ignited, lovely.' I think to myself, I couldn't help but to ponder about what is going on. Like why am I here? Why are the trees and grass red? Why is that bird following me? What is the purpose of life? Is it just a pointless cycle of pain and endorphins? Are we just slaves to the base instinct of chemicals? Is it just for propagation of one species? And why is there a werewolf… ?

"Oh Shit!" I yelp, ducking under a leaping grab, rolling forward to not get stomped by the wolf thing, I pull the metal bar down, sliding it through the straps, hopping my hand along the length. Taking a pike stance, I swing upwards to smack the beast jaw shut, jabbing forward to push the chest. The beast swipes with a left hail mary. Jabbing the pipe at the limb, I step forward moving my hands up the bar, and stab the lower jaw with my knife. Honestly surprise it even cut, it's blade is chipped at shit.

Pulling the blade back, the teeth got stuck in the bones. Hesitating for a second, the wolf tackles me to the ground. Pushing the bar up and into its open maw, I feel the thundering hits of the ground pounding strikes. Pushing my legs into its abdomen, I kick at the hips. Rolling the bar, I strike it down to the left, which with my now free left hand, I pull out one of my throwing knives, and stab forward into the mouth, getting straight into the top of the mouth.

The beast then roared and tried to bite through the bar, but now with it focusing on biting, I can maneuver the bar, and in doing so, I spin the bar, twisting the neck. A resistance follows and after a sickening pop the creature falls on me. I hear a sizzling noise, and the weight gets lighter. Still being pinned is boring, and I start to hear footsteps off to my right. "Well now, That could've gone better, huh?" a gruff voice says.

I look upward, seeing a man dressed in grey. "Better than expected." I reply, turning my neck, I see a woman standing a fair distance away.

He stares down at me, "You gonna pick yourself up?"

I push up on the dead corpse, finding my hand just slip through the sinew. Twisting on my right shoulder and hip, I leverage the corpse off. I see that I only stand as tall as his chest. "Now then, why's a kid like you be out here on their own?" He remarks.

"Names Qrow, mind telling me why you are so far out here?" he asks after I was silent for a few seconds. "Listen, buddy, can't help ya if you ain't gonna give me something."

"Was drifting by, before my truck exploded."

"I saw that, or heard it at least. So let me get this straight your truck stopped running and instead of calling someone on your scroll, you decided a stroll through grimm infested lands was better."

"I don't have a scroll."

"So without a scroll, you drove through a grimm infested forest, your truck stopped working, and you went walking with a metal pipe, and some knives, and was carrying a lot of luggage."

"Ja."

"Then why are you out here?"

"Well, earlier today, I woke up in my house like normal, and it was in the forest."

"You must be very unlucky then, or pissed off the wrong person." He sighs, "welp, kid. Normally, I would find the closest village to dump you at, but Vale's closer."

"Right." I say, looking back at my suitcase, I see that it's been crushed and shredded from the initial grimm attack. "My load has gotten significantly lighter anyways."

"Yeah, guess you're hitting a rough patch of luck." he says taking out a thin bar that unfolds on itself, typing a few things on it and putting it back away. "Well kid, This ain't the best of locations to land a bullhead, so, was your house in a clearing?"

"Aye, it's just back that way." I point back where I came from, where a pillar of smoke was rising up above the trees.

"Oh good, we already got an indicator for them, don't need to waste a flare then." He chuckles. "Alright Amber, let's go." he says over his shoulder, and from the bushes, a dark skin woman breaches the treeline.

Patting my right chest pocket, I find an old match box. Pulling it out, I check the contents and find a fair 20 matches left inside. Taking one out, I put it in my mouth, chewing on the non-strike side, and start walking back to my house.

* * *

**And Scene! Now, The chapter was written by three people, Instead of just me. So, That's why it's so much longer (and probably better quality). Also, I fucking suck at keeping a consitant schedual, this was written over the course of three weekends. When before it would've taken a month or so to produce 1,000 words.**

**Anyways I had some friends actually help me with this chapter this time:**

**Steve: Mornin' or afternoon depending on when you're reading this but I'm Steve resident science boi who does the science of everything, and gets yelled at by the others for "over complicating" it.**

**Needles: Howdy all, I go by Needles (big shock to who my character is,) and it's my job here to contribute my thoughts and ideas to the story as well as make sure that these two idiots don't try to overcomplicate everything. Hope you all enjoyed this little project. If you all would like to see more, don't fret cause we got a lot more in store for you all.**


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